Re: Dumb Questions
From: Thomas Jahns (Thomas.Jahns_at_epost.de)
Date: 11/20/04
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Date: 20 Nov 2004 17:14:36 +0100
Keith Krehbiel <redsilo@pldi.net> writes:
> Running Debian/woody......
On what exact machine type?
> How do you read a text file?
One can either use an editor (such as vi, emacs, joe, nano etc.) or a
text display tool like less. I think less is quite nice to use, but if
you want a fully graphical display, the X11 editors like kedit will
probably be easier for you.
> I have emacs and have read quite a bit of the manual but I have not
> yet found the place where it tells how to get a file into the editor
> to view/edit.
The emacs manual is unfortunately for people who already know a little
bit about emacs and rather want to learn how to use emacs 'right' than
be given first steps. Actually the best way for first steps in a Unix
environment is to have someone knowledgable in reach.
> How do you get install tools (apt-get, dselect or other suggestions)
> to recognize files that are not on the distro cds or on the Debian
> website but rather on a hard disk connected to the computer?
apt-get and co. only make available files from one of the sources listed
in /etc/apt/sources.list. If you wish to make files you put in
/some/directory available to apt-get do the following:
dpkg-scanpackages /some/directory /dev/null | gzip >/some/directory/Packages.gz
(dpkg-scanpackages is part of the dpkg-dev package which might need to
install first) then add a line like this to /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb file:/some/directory/ ./
Finally issue "apt-get update" and the packages in /some/directory will be
available.
But if you simply want to install package /some/directory/xyz.deb you
could just as well issue 'dpkg -i /some/directory/xyz.deb' to install it
that one time.
> Many of the files mentioned in posts here and other places seem to be
> text files. Some seem to be lists of parameters and others possibly
> shell scripts. Is it possible to really screw things up by changing
> them? (provided one can get them into an editor to change them)
> Often advice is given to 'simply' change file 'x' to read 'y'. How do
> you do that?
The files meant to be changed by the administrator (you) are mostly
/etc.
> Is it possible to override default directorie(s) by giving an entire
> pathlist?
You mean the search path for binaries? Like when you type ls, /bin/ls
gets executed? If you want to have /some/otherbin/prog to be executed
when you type 'prog' you need to add /some/otherbin to your PATH
variable. You need to tell us what shell you use to tell you how to set
PATH.
> Somewhere I read that the filesystem does not necessarily describe a
> single drive or device but can be spread over several devices. How
> can you tell what you have in the way of files/devices/etc.?
Every active disk partition, floppy/CD drive or other data storage is
'mounted' by the mount utility to some path in the filesystem. Invoking
mount without any arguments will tell what is mounted where:
tjahns@mercury:~ > mount
/dev/hda5 on / type xfs (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/hda7 on /usr type xfs (rw,nodev,noatime)
/dev/hda9 on /var type xfs (rw,nosuid)
/dev/hda10 on /tmp type xfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/hda13 on /transfer type vfat (rw,noexec,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=133,dmask=022)
/dev/hda8 on /usr/local/share/bind-chroot type xfs (rw,nosuid)
/dev/hda11 on /home type xfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/hda14 on /scratch type xfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
automount(pid2528) on /hosts type autofs (rw,fd=4,pgrp=2528,minproto=2,maxproto=4)
automount(pid2588) on /media/usb type autofs (rw,fd=4,pgrp=2588,minproto=2,maxproto=4)
To mount another disk like the second partition on the primary slave IDE
drive to directory /mnt you would use something like:
mount /dev/hdb2 /mnt
This assumes /dev/hdb2 contains a valid formatted filesystem. If you
want to know which partitions your linux has recognized you could do
this:
cat /proc/partitions
major minor #blocks name
3 0 156290904 hda
3 1 112423 hda1
3 2 8032 hda2
3 3 1 hda3
3 5 361431 hda5
3 6 530113 hda6
3 7 26218048 hda7
3 8 48163 hda8
3 9 6658911 hda9
3 10 3068383 hda10
3 11 43005973 hda11
3 12 16571016 hda12
3 13 5446003 hda13
3 14 54259506 hda14
> Ls seems to be pretty good at listing directories but doesn't seem to
> want to list files. Is that normal?
Please elaborate. ls -l /some/fileOrDir will give detailed information
about any file or directory on the system if that's what you want.
> Is it possible to install and run a Debian system without a
> network/internet connection?
Of course it is.
> What GUI should work with Debian? I have what I think is a copy of
> XFree86. Can this be made to work?
That depends on wether there is a driver for your particular graphics
hardware (that's a yes in most cases).
> Thanks for your patience. I know all these things should be obvious
> but they are not for me.
You really should follow the advice others have given you to read a good
book on Linux. And actually nothing of this is obvious before one has
accumulated had a good amount of experience with Linux/Unix. But that is
the same for any powerful piece of software.
Thomas Jahns
-- "Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind." D. E. Knuth, The TeXbook, Addison-Wesley 1984, 1986, 1996, p. 9
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